


Punisher One

by batyalewbel



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, I made my first AU y'all, M/M, The Punisher AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-05 01:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12784224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyalewbel/pseuds/batyalewbel
Summary: They met when he was working as a paralegal for Nelson and Murdock. They were the lawyers for her trial.It didn’t end well, but things with her never did.The papers started calling her The Rogue One.A stupid name, and not one she would have picked.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Somebody on Tumblr (And I wish I could find the post if somebody knows the post I'll link it here)  
> Basically somebody said Punisher AU with Cassian as Karen and Jyn as Frank and I COULDN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT.
> 
> Also this is totally Shu-of-the-winds fault she is a terrible enabler  
> I.e. I should be finishing my other Rebelcaptain thing but OH HEY WRITERS BLOCK DON'T MIND IF I DO.

_We here have been brutalized with loss. It has made us brutal in return._

_-Penny Dreadful, John Logan_

_\---_

Jyn spends her day the same way she’s spent the last six months since she hunted down every last person involved with Operation Death Star.

She stood before a wall of solid concrete and and hammered it down to gravel. The only reason she got this job was because the guy running this company was a veteran himself. She supposed he took pity on the bruised girl with a service record. (Little did he know how she had really gotten those bruises)

The manager didn’t seem too bothered by how she spent her shifts and so she didn’t stop.

The hammer was big, unwieldy for her small frame. Her muscles were burning after a few minutes with it in her hands but she didn’t stop hammering. She would go until her arms were overworked and burning. Until the blisters on her hand were broken and bleeding all over the hammer’s wooden shaft.

Very quickly, the other construction workers started cracking jokes.

 _“Ooh it must be that time of the month,”_ they would say and laugh. She never reacted until one of them palmed her ass, then she used the hammer to break his leg.

Of course it didn’t end there.

It didn’t end until there were a bunch of corpses in the cement mixer and a note left for one Donnie Chavez to get out of town while he still could.

\---

“You’re Jyn Erso?” the voice asks over the phone at this nowhere diner where the waitress keeps calling her a hipster. She clutches the receiver tighter, glancing around reflexively for someone watching her.

“Who the fuck is this?” she presses the receiver against her cheek, taking a quick glance over her shoulder to be sure.

“Call me Pilot,” says the lightly accented voice on the other end. Sounds like a Londoner.

“That’s a stupid name, why are you calling me?” she growls into the mouthpiece.

“We need to talk, I have some information I think you’ll want.”

That’s all she needs to hear before throwing money down at her table and racing out the door.

She sees the building across the way and runs for it. It’s where she would set up for a sniper.

There’s nothing but a phone tied to a note.

 _Don’t disappoint me Jyn,_ it says.

Across the way, on the roof of the diner she sees a man with tawny skin and sunglasses get up with a nod in her direction before strolling away.

“Fuck you,” she mutters and she pockets the phone.

\---

“Jyn has it gotten this bad?” a worried Cassian asks finding her hunched down outside his building like a homeless person.

“I wanted to talk,” she replies, “I thought I would try my luck out here.

Cassian smirks a little at that but it fades quickly.

“Jyn what are you doing here?” he asks and it’s almost gentle, although there is something still guarded in his stance.

“Can we talk?” she asks and he looks her up and down once more before nodding. A short jerk of his chin and then he turns on his heel and doesn’t look back. Now it's Jyn's turn to smirk as she follows him inside.

\---

Cassian Andor, The Bulletin’s star reporter. He began working as an investigative journalist with them a few years ago. They met when he was working as a paralegal for Nelson and Murdock. They were the lawyers for her trial.

It didn’t end well, but things with her never did.

The papers started calling her The Rogue One.

A stupid name, and not one she would have picked.

They had a few run ins then. Andor was smart, too smart if anything. She had to save his ass a few times.

(She’s thought about that night in his apartment a lot. The two of them crashing to the ground in a hail of broken glass. It was the first time she’d touched a person for something other than violence in a long time)

She knows he moved to the states from Mexico when he was young. She knows his family is dead.

That’s really all she knows. They didn’t talk too much in the time they spent together. Their meetings were always fleeting and ending in blood.

Cassian had practically begged her not to kill the general. But she knew the system well and she knew how well it could fail. Death was the only solution for people like Schoonover and so she killed the general and left.

Cassian Andor was smart and capable enough to take care of himself.

He was also a magnet for trouble.

That was the problem.

Sometimes she thought he was the magnet and she was the trouble.

\---

“I wasn’t sure you’d still talk to me” she says in Cassian’s apartment, tucking her hands into the pockets of her dark jeans, the black hoodie still pulled over her head.

“To be honest, I wasn’t either,” he replies as he rummages in the fridge and comes back two beer bottles. He hands one to her and then leans against his counter top taking a slow pull from his drink and crossing his arms.

“So what is it Jyn? You’ve been off the grid for months without a word,” he says and it’s times like this she thinks he must have really found his calling at The Bulletin.

“I had business to take care of,” she says and takes a sip of her own beer leaning against the wall. It puts a little distance between them which is good. It’s safer that way.

“And you finished your business then?” Cassian asks and she nods mutely. Cassian nods too and sighs.

The silence that falls between them is practically deadly.

“Cassian I…” his gaze is unwavering as he watches her fumble towards her reason for being here.

“There’s somebody who knows I’m still alive… Somebody who calls himself Pilot and I uh…”

His gaze seems to almost sharpen, he stands a little straighter as she continues, “I just...needed to know...if you said anything.”

“Jesus, Jyn you know I would _never,”_ he replies, eyes flashing.

“I _know_ Cassian I just…” she has to look away, “It’s a short list and I just… I had to check.”

Cassian leans back against the wall, that frown still firmly creasing his brows.

“Well I haven’t said a word Jyn. I said _all the way_ remember?”

She did remember.

\---

_“Maybe you don’t want to be here?” she asked after Cassian climbed into his own car which she had broken into._

_“I’m not a lawyer, I don’t have attorney-client privilege. Lying to the cops makes me an accessory,” he said with some heat as he leaned against the passenger side window, pinching at the bridge of his nose._

_“Well I won’t keep you here,” she said, “If you want to go than go.”_

_Cassian dropped his hand then and looked at her._

_“No. Blacksmith already tried to get me once. I won’t give him a second chance.”_

_“He won’t get one,” she replied, “But you can’t get in my way. You know what my methods are. If we’re doing this, I need to know that you're with me.”_

_And Cassian hesitated, his gaze turning towards the window again, thoughtful and long. She saw when it clicked into place and he nodded at her, a short, sharp jerk of his chin._

_“All the way,” he told her, and with that she started the car._

_In the end it wouldn’t be quite all the way._

_Not that she had really been expecting a promise like that to last. Promises were empty and broken the moment they were said aloud. She learned that the hard way._

_\---_

“Listen Cassian, this guy Pilot, I think he’s some kind of spook, I think he’s been watching me,” she says as Cassian folds himself into a seat at his small kitchen table.

“And you want my help finding him,” Cassian says and it’s a question said like a statement. She nods, finding a need to stare at her shoes and avoid his gaze.

“He said something about me not being the only ghost in New York,” she says and Cassian nods without looking at her.

“How do I contact you?” he asks and Jyn wordlessly pulls a vase of flowers from the backpack she’s been carrying. Cassian’s mouth quirks as she sets it down on the table.

“You brought me flowers?”

“I’m old fashioned,” she says with a shrug, “Put it on your windowsill and I’ll find you.”

“Okay,” he murmurs, looking away from her again.

“Okay,” she repeats and she zips up her bag getting ready to flee the scene and the stifling tension that’s making her skin prickle like a warning.

Suddenly they’re standing before each other and the air is thick with whatever _it_ is.

“It’s good to see you,” Cassian says and he sounds heavy with it.

“You too,” she replies and she flees before she chokes on it.

\---

Back when she was in the military, she kept her hair cropped close to her skull. Since coming back it’s grown to a long braid she winds back in an unruly bun. The fringe flops forward over her eyes. It’s not the greatest disguise, she envies men and their facial hair that can so easily change a face, but the longer hair works well enough to obscure her features. Whenever she passes a camera she ducks her head, let’s the fringe hide her eyes.

There are many cameras on the average New York City street. She keeps her head down on the way to the pier.

She finds Cassian waiting for her there and she saunters over to him. Like this is a casual encounter between strangers and nothing more.

Cassian faces forward and doesn’t look at her which is smart for keeping up the act.

“What are you going to do if you find Pilot?” he asks the air before him as soon as she sits down.

She shouldn’t be caught off guard by how direct he is.

“You found him?” she asks and Cassian sighs, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees.

“Jyn, I want to help you but not if it’s going to get someone killed,” he says sounding calm and yet not. Sounding bone tired and glancing at her with steely dark eyes.

Jyn leans forward too, tries to keep the flaring temper from her voice as she replies, “Cassian, he came looking for _me._ Not the other way around. For all I know he had something to do with my parents getting killed.”

Cassian glance is almost wary and she keeps plowing forward.

“What do you want? Guarantees? I can’t give you any. If he’s clean he has nothing to fear from me” she says and she glares at Cassian, willing him to understand.

“So would you help me? Please?”

Cassian looks at her now, a hundred emotions flitting across his features before he settles back into a frown and shoves a piece of paper into her hands, turning his head the other way.

“What is this?” she asks and Cassian shakes his head.

“Just read it. It’s an unconfirmed story but it matches what you said.”

She reads about an NSA Agent named Bodhi Rook who leaked covert information and was caught and killed by Homeland Security. He called himself Pilot.

“What’s he got on you anyway?” Cassian asks as she finishes the article and begins folding it up.

“Nothing,” she mutters and that’s a lie. They both know it.

She pockets the article.

“Thank you for this,” she says and Cassian sighs, nods his head and looks away.

That’s enough and she gets to her feet in a rush. She’s a few steps away when Cassian calls after her.

“Hey when am I gonna see you?”

That freezes her in place and she looks curiously at the man.

“You want to?” she asks and it sounds incredulous in her ears. Cassian pushes himself to his feet and turns to face her.

“It would mean you’re still alive,” he says with the barest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. And Jyn doesn’t know what to say to that. She nods and leaves.

“Be careful,” he calls after her and she ducks her head and walks faster.

\---

Aaylah Rook is easy enough to win over.

After Jyn purposely threw herself at the woman’s windshield it was a simple thing to get invited inside by Bodhi Rook’s sister. She's sweet and dangerously so.

The nice ones are always the first to go. They lack the kind of suspicion that keeps one alive. Jyn looks around the nice house and listens to Aaylah apologize repeatedly.

“I’m _so sorry_ again, are you sure you don’t need a doctor?” she asks as she leads Jyn to their bathroom and a first aid kid.

“No this will be just fine, thanks,” Jyn says and smiles. It's easy to smile in a home like this. Jyn hasn’t been in one for so long, but it has the air of an old family home.

Hers is little more than ash now and gathering dust.

“Sorry my mother is going to be home soon, would you like some tea? I’ll make us some tea,” Aaylah speaks too fast and her hands flutter, nervously tugging at her brightly colored hijab. She's heading back towards the kitchen before Jyn can get a word in.

Jyn calls after her that she doesn't need tea as she dabs at the blood trickling down her forehead.

She ends up staying for the tea and meeting Bodhi’s mother. An older woman with knowing eyes who says that Jyn is a good girl, like she knows something about it.

Jyn wants to tell the woman how wrong she is, but she only smiles.

She doesn’t _have_ to stay and fix their garage door but she does anyway.

She also spots at least five cameras around the Rook household and figures Pilot must be watching.

\---

Harry Ponta is the only one from her old unit who knows she’s still alive. Not like many of their old unit survived. Reese Tallent is out there too but she thinks it's safer the less people know she's alive.

Harry's a good man and he was never involved with Death Star.

Not like she was, not like Reese. It left him a little cleaner than the rest of them that survived.

She sometimes eavesdrops on his little meetings, although being technically dead is a good enough reason to not actually step inside. Harry keeps telling her she's welcome although being welcome isn’t really the issue of it. What she knows put people in graves. What she's done is even worse.

She isn’t going to be opening up about that anytime soon.

But Harry's a good friend and game for anything. He meets Pilot AKA Bodhi Rook at the cemetery while Jyn breaks into the trunk of his car.

She hears the muffled sounds of the man calling her name, but she simply hunkers down and waits for him to come back to his car and drive back to wherever he's been hiding away.

As soon as the engine stops and the sound of his footsteps fades, she jimmies the trunk open and hops out.

It's all too easy.

But then, these guys are so used to hiding behind screens they don’t always consider real life repercussions.

\---

Once he's zip tied to a chair it takes very little heartfelt intimidation to get him to spill.

He had received a video of Kandahar.

Footage of Operation Death Star at work.

He leaked the footage to an agent at Homeland Security fearing they would bury it.

His sister told him not to but he did it anyway.

He said it was about doing right by himself.

They found him when he was stuck in gridlock traffic. They were on their way to dinner with a friend of his mother’s and he saw the soldiers approaching the car.

He hugged his sister, kissed his mother on the cheek, and then ran.

His sister followed.

Carson Wolf shot him in the chest, his phone in his pocket was the only thing that saved him. He fell into New York Harbor with his sister’s screams ringing in his ears.

Now he’s legally dead and hiding in a basement watching his family on screens.

They’re more alone now than ever, shunned by neighbors who didn’t like them much to begin with and now they call Bodhi a traitor.

\---

“Come on, you’re waging a war against the CIA _and_ the military,” Bodhi Rook says looking as incredulous as she feels about the turn things took.

“You just got rolled by one spook zip tied to a chair. You _need_ my help as much as I need yours,” he adds with something near a laugh and she glares at him where he sits across from her on one of two grubby mattresses pressed into this corner of the cavernous basement he’s set himself up in.

“Listen Jyn, I’ve spent months hacking into every server. CIA, NSA, Homeland, the Police Department. I’ve set everything up for you.”

Jyn stares at him now, flat and without feeling.

“For me?”

Bodhi looks at her then and his hands are still fidgeting in his lap, too much nervous energy for his body to contain, but his dark eyes are big and earnest as he says with such conviction, “Every missile needs a guidance system. I can be that system.”

Jyn scoffs and Bodhi just waves his hand at her.

“Listen, your Operation Death Star wasn’t in any system. I looked everywhere. There’s no records, no congressional approval, do you know what that means?”

She does… She knows exactly what it means and the meaning crawls up her spine like ice, chipping at her composure. She rests her head in her hands and wishes he would shut up.

Her ears are ringing and her heart pounds as Bodhi tells her, “They turned you into a hit man...a hit woman.”

And with that she drops her hand and looks at Bodhi who is watching her with an intensity that is as full of edges and nerves.

“I don’t care if we trust eachother. Promises are for kids in tree houses but you and I… We want the same thing so _work with me.”_

And he looks at her, begging, willing her to agree.

She looks at him, feeling her heart pound a hole through her chest and regretting the decision she’s about to make. It feels like the wrong one.

“ _Fine._ But on one condition.”

“Name it.”

“They die,” she tells him and Bodhi leans back a little. His eyes skittering around the room, scanning each of his screens as he seems to consider it.

Finally he looks back at her.

“Yeah I can live with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is going to be mostly just some snapshots. I liked a lot of the Punisher(In spite of finding some of the gun stuff in poor taste) and I seriously can't stop thinking about these two in this universe now.  
> Also there is that ELEVATOR SCENE LIKE DAMN IT WAS BEGGING FOR ME TO COME AT IT.  
> Jyn's two war buddies are names I pulled from her backstory and altered a little bit. They don't really track with Curtis and Billy except one was nice to her and one betrayed her but *shrug emoji* that's how it's gonna be. Harry Ponta was Hadder Ponta and Reese Tallent was....Reece Tallent...not so much of a stretch.  
> In case I don't end up actually writing a scene at the Bulletin, Draven is Cassian's boss. Kay is a co-worker. Tivik is the one who Cassian was once accused of murdering.  
> And don't worry Baze and Chirrut are coming.


	2. Chapter 2

She dreams it every time she closes her eyes. Her mom woke her up that morning with a smile, she’d let Jyn sleep in because she looked like she needed it.

In the dream a soldier shoots her mother in the head.

That’s not what happened and yet that is what she dreams over and over again.

It wakes her every morning like a punch to the teeth.

She can only clench her jaw and try to keep breathing through the horror and the blood of it.

In reality they died at the park to the sound of strangers screaming and the tune of a carousel spinning.

\---

“For the record I can clean my gun, it’s just that I don’t use it,” Bodhi says after she presses the cleaned and oiled weapon back in his hand.

“It’s just for show,” he says and she turns to glare at him.

“You know where I’m from, if you pull out a weapon you’d better be ready to use it.”

Bodhi stares at her before settling back into his chair facing what looks like at least 10 different screens.

“We should have just gotten the guns of the street,” he mutters and Jyn folds her arms.

“Oh so you want to put money into those animals’ hands?” she demands and Bodhi looks back at her and scoffs.

“Sorry I keep forgetting about your  _ thing  _ Jyn. Do unto bad guys and all that. What is that anyway? A code? A mantra?” he pauses, his hands airborne in mid gesture, “An ethos maybe?”

Jyn snorts, “Fuck off,” she says and shakes her head as her phone vibrates in her pocket. Bodhi turns in his seat to squint at her as she pulls the cell phone from her pocket.

“Who’s calling you?” he asks.

“Your sister,” Jyn replies easily.

“Why does my sister have your number?” Bodhi asks sounding close to one of his many edges and she looks down at the caller ID and then him. An echo of shame sits at the back of her throat as she states, “Leverage.”

And Bodhi sits up a little in his chair, folding his arms and staring back at her.

The only sound is the tinny ring of her phone, bright and mechanical. The sound of it bouncing off the walls to hit them again and again.

“Well go on answer it then,” he finally says, “See what she wants.”

\---

“I’m so sorry,” Aaylah Rook apologizes yet again and Jyn idly wonders how much time she spends apologizing in an average day.

“It’s just that insurance wouldn’t fix the headlight until I got a signature from you saying you wouldn’t sue me and…” she trails off as Jyn leans against the small table to sign the paper.

She signs it, Lianna Hallik. 

That kind of small lie hardly even touches her anymore.

She used to hate that sort of thing with every fiber of her being, but not anymore.

She lets her eyes wander over the framed photographs sitting on that table around her paper and pen.

Pictures of them together. Bodhi, with a smile too big for a face crushing Aaylah and their mother in for a hug. Bodhi standing with his arm around a blonde boy’s shoulders. Every picture is another smile and they all look a little foreign and a little familiar.

“Oh sorry… That’s…” Aaylah trails off from behind her and Jyn straightens up and puts the signed paper in the woman’s hand.

“It’s fine,” she says.

And Aaylah laughs but it’s a cracked facade.

“You’re right, you’re right it’s fine,” she turns away from Jyn and presses a hand over her mouth.

Jyn knows what happened. She doesn’t need to ask. She ought to leave them be.

“Sorry, that’s my brother. He died last year and…” Aaylah still has her back to Jyn and her voice trembles.

“He died doing something really brave… And really stupid.”

Jyn nods her head.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she murmurs and she should leave it at that. She owes this woman nothing and yet this house is so warm and kind and a little truth comes bubbling out.

“I’ve lost family too,” she says and her voice sounds like it’s been ground to gravel.

Aaylah turns to look at her, dark eyes wide and sad.

“My parents were…” Jyn can’t even say it out loud. The story is that it was an accident. Civilians caught between a violent criminal shootout. 

The story is a lie she can’t force herself to say. Not here, with this girl who looks broken like she feels.

“It’s hard to lose someone you love,” is what she finally settles on saying aloud and Aaylah nods and wipes moisture from her eyes.

That’s when a knock on the door startles Aaylah and makes Jyn reflexively reach for the pistol she might normally be carrying tucked into her jacket.

Aaylah glances at the clock behind Jyn and then groans, pressing her face into her hands

“Oh Liana I’m sorry I’m such a mess today, I completely forgot,” she says and Jyn studies the silhouette of whoever is standing outside their door. Someone Aaylah was obviously expecting and forgot about.

“I can leave if you have guests, I wouldn’t want to impose,” Jyn says and Aaylah shakes her head.

“No, no you came all this way, the least I can do is make you some time,” she says as she heads for the door, “It’s only Luke, it’s fine. Stay and have some tea.”

That’s how Jyn ends up sitting next to an open-faced blue eyed boy who apparently was dating Bodhi before the incident and sipping chamomile tea.

\---

“Don’t you see? We’re both in this. We’ve both lost things,” Bodhi is standing over her, all earnesty and big eyes and Jyn can’t hear that right now. Not after meeting Luke and sitting with Aaylah while she tried to keep it together.”

“No we’re not the same at all,” she says pointing a finger at him, “You made a choice and it’s putting your family through hell not to mention that boyfriend of yours.”

Bodhi pales, his own temper surfacing in response to her own and this is what she can handle. She can’t talk but she can fight. Right now she  _ needs  _ a fight.

“Leave Luke out of this.”

“You know he’s visiting them once a week? You must have seen that on your little screens,” she flicks a hand at his array in the center of the room.

“You forced them into this with  _ your  _ choices” she tells him through gritted teeth, “My family was taken from me.  _ I didn’t have a choice.”  _

She jumps to her feet and steps closer. Standing in his face, in his space, daring him to take a swing at her. She could use some violence right now, if only to quiet the thoughts swirling around in her own head.

Instead he just glares at her for a long, airless moment.

“You’re an  _ asshole,”  _ he says before he turns on his heel and throws himself down into his desk chair. She huffs and shakes her head.

“Get me those guns so I can be an armed asshole and actually get something  _ done.” _

With that she leaves him to stew and finds she doesn’t feel any better now than she did when she started the fight.

\---

Cassian sits in his office at the bulletin and stews. It’s been a couple of days since he gave Jyn the information on Pilot.

The silence shouldn’t bother him. He’s had months of silence before this to wonder…

He had wanted to believe Jyn almost from the start, he wasn’t sure he  _ trusted  _ her but he believed her that was for sure. Or maybe he believed in her.

She was like a tinder ready to spark into flame. She was like a forest fire.

A force of nature that he learned he could not control. All he could do was hope he sent her in the right direction and ask the right questions.

Jyn believed violence was the answer to every question. He was just trying to help her see other alternatives.

Sometimes violence  _ was  _ the answer. He knew that from experience even if the dead still haunted him. He still dreamed of waking up next to Tivik’s corpse. Of grabbing that gun away from James Wesley and pulling the trigger in a wild panic. Sometimes he thinks he can still smell the blood.

So Cassian understands the need for violence sometimes. But not  _ every  _ time and that’s what worries him with Jyn.

He killed once in cold blood and it haunts him still. He worries about how many souls must be haunting Jyn.

He was so  _ angry  _ with her when she killed the general over his protests. Not because he cared about the man’s life but because he just cared. Maybe he believed in the justice system or maybe he thought there was a better way he doesn’t even know anymore.

But god he was angry then.

He’s not anymore.

Kay comes into his office and sighs.

“You saw that girl again didn’t you?” he asks flatly and Cassian raises his eyebrows aiming for nonchalance.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about Kay.”

He met Kay when he began at the Bulletin. The man might be the closest thing Cassian has to a friend these days and Cassian cranes his head to look up at the obscenely tall man.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about. That girl you met last year? The one you mooned over for months? You’ve seen her again I can tell,” Kay says and folds his arms, gray eyes watching Cassian with a keen intensity that is more or less his standard.

Cassian sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose trying to ward off a headache.

“Maybe, but if I did it’s none of your business.”

“Correct, try to be less obvious and don’t let it affect your deadlines and then it will be none of my business.”

With that Kay leaves Cassian alone with his thoughts and his steadily brewing migraine.

\---

“I can’t do this,” Bodhi says staring down at the pistol Jyn left with him.

“You don’t have a choice,” Jyn says, “It’s a two man job and if you want me to help you, I need artillery.”

Bodhi shakes his head and doesn’t look at her.

“I don’t do this sort of thing Jyn, I sit behind screens, you shouldn’t trust me with this.”

Jyn sighs through her nose.

“You done?” she asks and Bodhi doesn’t move a muscle.

“You know Aaylah said you never liked to get your hands dirty. If something went wrong you’d call a guy…”

Bodhi still doesn’t move.

“Well you called me and now I need one thing from you and you’re too chickenshit to do it?”

Finally the man moves, one brief glance at her before he snatches up the gun and storms down the stairs, past her and towards the car.

“Asshole,” he mutters as he passes her and she smirks.

“Attaboy,” she says and follows behind him.

\---

“Baze, somethings happened, I need you to drive,” Chirrut Îmwe says into his cell phone as soon as he figures out their camera feed has been compromised.

“Chirrut what are you talking about?” grumbles his partner Baze Malbus from where he stands outside the surveillance van with a few other agents ready to go.

“Just get to the car now or I start driving,” Chirrut says and he waits long enough to hear the sigh that he knows means yes before hanging up the phone.

He swears he'll have to marry that man someday, but right now he needs to know who is stealing those guns.

His cane is folded up and tucked into his jacket, he snaps the pieces together and scrambles out of the surveillance van when he feels a familiar hand on his arm.

Chirrut just grins in his partners direction and lets the other man lead him to the car.

\---

Jyn’s pulled almost every trick she knows on the black car that’s been doggedly following her. She even spotted the driver as a large Asian man and his passenger is a blind man who seems to look directly at her as she drives by.

Now they are facing each other, revving their engines.

If she can pull them into the alley and swerve at the right moment they should lose control of the steering and she can make her escape.

They might crash in the process or they might not.

She grits her teeth and slams her foot down on the pedal and so do they. 

When the truck comes plowing into their car she has to turn the wheel hard, skidding to a stop.

Bodhi is clearly in a panic when she steps up to the truck.

“What did you do?” she asks him and he cuts her a hard look.

“I got my hands dirty,” he replies and it sounds calm and miles from it.

“Go home, I’ll handle this,” she tells him.

“Fuck you,” he says, head resting against the steering wheel, “Handle it how?”

“Don’t worry about it, just get out of here before the cops show up.”

And thank christ he does go, shooting her one final cutting look before storming up to the red Mustang and driving away.

Then she walks to the overturned car with a sigh. She pulls the driver out first. He's big and she has to really grit her teeth to do it. Dragging over twisted metal and broken glass. He's out cold so she just drags him a far enough distance from the car before leaving him there. 

As she lets him drop to the pavement he stirs.

_ “Chirrut,” _ he murmurs, one hand reaching back towards the car.

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbles. The other man’s eyes are open but unfocused. He’s smaller than the driver. Built solid but lithe. She drags him out of the car with less effort than the first man. With them out of the car she searched their pockets and finds what she was looking for.

Badges.

Baze Malbus and Chirrut Îmwe.

Homeland Security.

“Malbus. Îmwe,” she says their names and knows they’re awake enough to hear her. 

“Don't come after me. It won't end well for you,” she says and she leaves them there as their car bursts into flame.


	3. Chapter 3

“Did you catch a glimpse of the driver? Get a plate number?”

The questions land on Baze’s shoulders with particular force since no one is expecting Chirrut to get a plate number. He grits his teeth knowing what he saw makes no sense.

He told Chirrut what he saw and it makes no sense.

He saw a dead woman.

Or someone who is supposed to be dead.

Chirrut was the one who said they should say nothing and so he just squares his jaw and glares holes through the head of their superior.

\---

Jyn storms back into Bodhi’s hideout. She went to visit his family again just for spite. She ended up fixing Aaylah’s headlight which she had broken herself. Luke was there again, still too friendly and gentle.

She comes back to Bodhi’s and that anger is still simmering.

Especially when she sees him playing that recording from Kandahar again.

It itches something under her skin, seeing that footage.

She jams her hand down on the spacebar, pausing the video, before stomping back to her bed area.

“We don’t need to go through this again Bodhi, I was there.”

“Well somebody risked their lives trying to film this Jyn, maybe that’s somebody we should be talking to,” and there’s that force in his voice again. Not anger just earnesty and thought. She can see so much thinking going on behind those big dark eyes it makes her tired just to consider it.

So instead she peers at the footage. Its so easy to step back into that night. The tight constricting kevlar making her sweat in the stuffy warm air of Kandahar. She can smell the blood and piss of the man who had been strung up for several days by the time she was finally ordered to shoot him.

All she has to do is remember looking around the room. She remembers Reese on her left and Saw on her right.

She looks at Bodhi still sitting their, waiting impatiently.

“Saw Gerrera,” she says pressing her finger towards the screen.

“It was Saw Gerrera.”

And Bodhi looks up at her. Clearly he wants more than a name.

She settles into the chair beside him and rests her hands in her lap.

“Um, he’s from Texas. Pretty devout guy…” she trails off, studying the still frame of the innocent man she murdered.

“He knew what we were doing was wrong. He knew the whole time,” she says and it feels like a weight being put on, just saying it out loud.

“Maybe he knows who Agent White is,” Bodhi says softly, leaning towards her a little like an invitation.

\---

“Mr. Andor, let’s cut to the chase here,” Agent Chirrut Îmwe says with that easy of his and his blind eyes that don’t quite make eye contact but close to it.   
Cassian allows himself a small smile in return, even if the man can’t see it. He’s not used to being pulled aside by Homeland Security Agents. It’s making him nervous.

The big man standing behind Agent Îmwe hasn’t said a word. It’s also not helping Cassian’s nerves.

“You previously had contact with Jyn Erso?” Agent Îmwe asks and for a moment Cassian nearly startles.

“Pardon?”

“You were a paralegal on her case, it seems you had many interactions with her,” Îmwe continues. Still with that implacably bland smile.

“Are you questioning me about a dead woman?” Cassian asks, injecting the right amount of incredulity into his voice.

Unfortunately Cassian has had a lot of practice at lying.

“You know you’ve had a remarkable career here in New York,” Îmwe says as if he hadn’t asked a question just moments ago, “An assistant, a paralegal, and then a reporter.”

“I like to keep busy,” Cassian says lightly.

“Last year you were kidnapped from police protection by Jyn Erso and yet here you sit.”

Cassian bites back a glare, staring down at the table. No matter that he is an American citizen, provoking Homeland Security Agents would not be wise. He simply stares down and says, “Jyn Erso was no threat to me.”

“You sure about that?” asks the big man behind Agent Îmwe asks and Cassian fights the urge to glare at him.

_“Yes.”_

And then he looks back at Agent Îmwe, “Are we done?”

The man nods graciously and Cassian is out the door in a heartbeat. He doesn’t breathe properly until he’s out of the building entirely.

\---

“How does Cassian Andor fit into all this anyway?” Bodhi’s voice calls after her.

She does not respond as she walks out the door.

Cassian is waiting for her at the pier, arms folded against the chill night air.

“Hey,” she says as she approaches. The edges of his mouth lift just a little but he’s got that hard look in his eye.

“So I had an interesting day,” he says conversationally, “I got pulled aside by Homeland Security.” His eyes flick to hers in an instant.

“Three guesses what they wanted to talk about?”

Jyn can’t help the small smirk that touches her lips as she says, “So you met Îmwe and Malbus then?” and Cassian doesn’t nod or smile.

“I think they know you’re alive,” he says and Jyn lets that sink in.

“Well I did pull them from a burning car so…” she says and now Cassian finally manages something near a smile but he buries it beneath his hand.

“And the reason the car was on fire?” he asks, smoothing his smile away with his hand.

“Also me,” she says and Cassian sighs.

“I take it Bodhi Rook had the answers you were looking for?” he asks and now it’s her turn to sigh through her nose.

“Some,” she says and Cassian eyes her up and down.

“And is he still alive?”

She nods, “He was smart.”

And there’s that truth again, knocking against her teeth.

“He was really smart Cassian. He got out ahead of it and played dead,” the words feel like they are eroding her as she says them, “He kept his family safe.”

She has to look away from him then. Away from that look that she knows is gentle and maybe even kind.

She does not deserve a look like that.

And yet she keeps talking anyway.

“You know, before I was deployed for my second tour my mom had gotten me this… This pendant…” she trails off to look away from Cassian, “She wanted me to carry it… Like some kind of lucky charm… I told her it was stupid.”

She looks down at her feet.

“I wore it anyway, but it was never easy with my parents. When I think back, I only remember the good moments, but there were bad ones,” she looks back at Cassian then, “They were usually caused by me.”

Cassian is looking at her and every line of him is made of sadness.

“I have to find the bastards that took them from me and I gotta kill them,” she says looking him right in the eye, wanting him to understand this. That’s when she sees his expression flicker. He turns and walks away from her and she watches him silently.

“Where does that end Jyn?” he asks turning back to her now. She can feel her skin prickling beneath his gaze.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked, her voice going quiet with barely contained temper, “You want me to let it go?”

“No,” he snaps and his eyes are blazing, “I want there to be an after for you.”

He takes one step closer, “My life imploded when I was six years old and I didn’t spend the rest of my life hunting down the guys that did it,” he says and there’s anger, but so much sadness too.

“And you’re satisfied with that choice?” she asks him, her temper rising to match his. He glares at her and then looks away. Neither of them speak for at least a minute.

“Say you find and kill every one of these guys. Say you get exactly what you want… What happens then?” he asks her taking another step closer and she glares up at him and all his sadness.

“They’ll paint them as heroes Jyn. They’ll make everyone of those scumbags into heroes. Is that what you want?”

“So what do you want me to _do?”_ she demands, she wants out of this conversation and the way it’s making her feel like her skin is suddenly too thin to contain her.

“Expose them,” he says, his eyes flashing, “Talk to me or talk to Îmwe and Malbus, but tell somebody and we let the truth hang them.”

“They get to decide what the truth is Cassian,” she says and she’s too loud, too angry. Cassian is trying to talk but she shouts him down.

_“You don’t get to do that.”_

Now Cassian is quiet, he looks away from her. The corner of his mouth curls but his eyes are full. Jyn studies him and takes a moment to swallow back her temper. Swallowing back the volume in her voice.

“I can’t go after them and keep you safe,” she says and it comes out raw and bleeding.

“You don’t need to,” he says and she shakes her head.

“Are you _kidding?_ Of course I have to,” she says, “My family _died_ because of what I know.”

The temper is back and flaring out wildly. It’s skidding out of control as she says, “They died _because of me and I can’t—”_

Cassian is watching her now. Too sad and his eyes too keen, like he can see straight through her.

“Cassian I can’t let that happen to you… _I can’t.”_

He still hasn’t said a word and the anger is gone, this is after the impact. This is scrap metal and broken glass in her voice, in his eyes.

“I can’t,” she says again, _“Please.”_

And his mouth is tight with whatever words he isn’t saying, his eyes are full of the things he’s holding back and she’s amazed there isn’t a hole through her chest… Through his too.

She doesn’t know what to do, she doesn’t know how to make him understand… Or to understand him in return.

She just stands on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his cheek. There’s a hint of scruff on his cheek and it scratches at her lips. He smells like mint, like cigarette smoke, and something else that must just be _Cassian._

With that she pulls back.

She retreats.

She has no words left and she can only hope Cassian listens. She can’t read the look her gives her as she steps back. So she turns on her heel and leaves him alone on the peir before either of them can think too hard about what she just did.

\---

“From everything I can find on this Saw, it looks like he’s secluded himself from the world,” Bodhi says as Jyn loads supplies and ammunition into their van.

“What’s your point?” Jyn asks.

“My _point is,_ what’s he gonna say when you show up?” Bodhi asks and she just shrugs and sets down her load in the van.

“Just write down the address,” she tells him with a sigh. She’s tired from her talk with Cassian, she doesn’t need this right now.

“I’m coming with you,” Bodhi says and she wants nothing more than to scream right then. Why is everyone in her life intent on being suicidal?

“No,” she says, flat and with no room for argument.

“That’s bullshit Jyn, you can’t agree to work with someone and then just cut them out?” he says and she glares at him.

“This guy is _no joke Bodhi.”_

“Okay,” Bodhi says so easily she knows he isn’t getting her at all.

“If he doesn’t want us there I do _not have time to look after you,”_ she says, her voice turning to gravel as she turns to glare holes through him.

Bodhi just shrugs, lifts a box of ammo, and places it in the back of the van.

“You won’t even know I’m there,” he says.

\---

“Jyn,” Bodhi says holding out a walkie-talkie. She makes a face at him and the walkie-talkie.

“It can’t hurt,” Bodhi says, “Take it.”

Jyn sighs and grabs the walkie, tucking it away.

“Fine, but I better not hear from you unless you hear from me first.”

Bodhi nods seriously and Jyn shoots him one last look before heading for the fence.

“Stay in the van Bodhi. No getting your hands dirty this time.” And as she hoists herself over the fence he calls after her softly, “Good luck,” and he gets one quick glimpse of an almost smile before she plants her feet on the other side of the fence and starts walking.

Bodhi watches her go with an almost tangible sense of trepidation.

\---

The walk is at least a few miles. The way is riddled with booby traps that make more and more sense with each one she avoids.

When she finally sees the cabin she calls out, “ _Saw, you here?”_

She’s hoping that if she is open in alerting him to her presence, he won’t startle and lash out.

 _“Saw it’s me Jyn,”_ she drops her backpack down by a tree and unholsters her sidearm, holding it in the air so he might see it before she places it on the ground by her bag.

_“Saw I just want to talk.”_

She slowly approaches the cabin, caution in every step.

But the cabin looks empty.

 _“Saw,”_ she calls out again, and she’s filling her lungs to call out again, taking a few steps from the door when the arrow pierces her shoulder.

She lets out a cry, dropping to the ground hard and fast. She runs for cover behind the nearest tree and grunts in pain as she breaks off the length of the shaft. The arrow and part of the shaft are still in her shoulder but at least the rest isn’t sticking out like an invitation for someone to yank on it and cause her pain.

 _“Damn it Saw, I said I just want to talk,”_ she yells. Her shoulder is bleeding bad and she ducks another arrow that would have pierced her skull and runs for better cover.

 _“Saw, Goddamit it’s Jyn Erso. I’m not a part of it, I never have been,”_ pain makes her voice raw and she can see him standing a few feet from her with his bow raised.

“Hey, _hey,”_ she says coming around from behind the tree with her hands in the air, “I’m not your enemy Saw, they thought I was the one who recorded the tape and they killed my parents for it,” she says in a rush between gasps. Up close she can see him staring down the shaft of an arrow. He’s dressed in brown camo with a hat pulled low and a hood up over his head.

“Schoonover betrayed us and I put him down,” she continues keeping her hands in the air and ignoring the way it pulls at her shoulder.

“I just want to talk and then I’ll leave I swear—” she has to stop and gasp out a curse at the pain in her shoulder. Her hands dropping to cover the wound like that might do something for the agony lancing through it.

Saw watches her for a long moment, crouched down on the ground, gasping and bleeding. Up close she can see his face is lined with the scars that she remembers well.

“Saw, it’s me,” she whispers he finally, _finally_ lowers his bow. She lets herself breathe a sigh of relief then as Saw rumbles out a low, “Shit, sorry I shot you,” as Jyn struggles to get off her knees.

“Me too Saw, me too,” she says raggedly as Saw puts his bow down and helps her lean back against the tree.

\---

They hear the helicopter blades in the distance and getting louder fast.

Jyn can feel herself pale as Saw looks at her wide eyed and wary,

“They with you?”

“Shit, no they aren’t.”

And with that he’s helping her to her feet and they are running through the forest.

\---

It goes to shit so fast. She’s been shot in the leg, along with the already damaged shoulder. Saw gets hit in the stomach but they keep fighting.

Bodhi’s in her ear now, watching from a drone overhead and giving her directions.

At some point the connection is lost and then it’s just her and Saw and two men.

They take them down and Jyn finds the camera on the dead man’s shoulder. She stares into it with her bloody face and battle hard eyes.

“Whoever you are, I’m gonna find you and I’m gonna kill you,” she says before letting the corpse drop to the ground.

Saw just dropped the other soldier and steps out from behind the tree,

“Just like old times he says before dropping to the ground.”

Jyn’s still running off the dregs of adrenaline as she runs for him, the words grounding out of the back of her throat, “No, _no_ Saw you’re coming with me.”

She bends down to pull his arm over her shoulder and stands, her face squeezing from pain as she braces his weight against her small frame. He can barely support himself but she plants her feet and takes one step, then another.

“You should leave me,” Saw groans and she shakes her head, “Hell no,” she says through gritted teeth as they go staggering off by the light of the setting sun.

\---

Bodhi lost the connection over earpiece.

Jyn hasn’t answered the walkie and he wonders if it got dropped somewhere.

It’s been well over an hour and he brought the drone back thinking it was done after the last man fell. All he could see was the little shapes of them dropping men one by one.

But it’s been too long

And something is wrong.

\---

It’s dark and Jyn doesn’t know how long they’ve been struggling along but either she’s going to collapse under him or she has to stop and rest.

She lets them both drop against a fallen tree with a groan. Beside her Saw slumps back against the rough bark. His breathing is wet and ugly sounding.

 _“I’m sorry,”_ Jyn gasps and Saw shakes his head.

“I always thought I would die in these woods anyway,” he says. He coughs and wheezes and she’s too tired to do more than look at him, “Hey stop that, come on.”

There’s blood in her mouth and she doesn’t remember how it got there.

“Bury me,” Saw says and she can hear his breath getting worse.

“What? No come on Saw,” she says between shaky breaths of her own.

“Just promise me that you’ll bury me,” Saw says and he reaches out to grab Jyn’s arm, pulling her to look him in the eyes.

“Promise me,” he says so fiercely that she finds herself nodding and meaning it.

“I promise,” she says and then she leans back feeling how much _everything hurts._

She can’t stop here or she’ll die.

_Shit._

She forces herself to move and it takes every ounce of will to do it.

“Saw, I’m gonna get help. I’ll come back for you,” she says in a rush leaning over him and touching his cheek with bloody fingers, “I’ll get us help just stay here.”

Saw just nods and then she’s somehow on her feet again and staggering drunkenly into the dark and what she hopes is the right direction.

Bodhi will get them help, she just need to get to him.

She just needs to keep moving one foot in front of the other.

She just needs to get to Bodhi.

She just needs to keep moving.

She doesn’t know how much farther she goes. It feels like miles of nothing but darkness as her head turns to fuzz and her vision goes blurry and gray.

She doesn’t even remember hitting the ground in a bloody heap.

She doesn’t remember lying there, eyes open and gasping for air.

She doesn’t remember the blinking red light floating above her.

\---

It takes Bodhi too long to find her, even with the drone.

The dark shape of her outlined against the dark ground turns his stomach and his chest is buzzing with nerves.

He has to find her _now._

And when he does he can hardly see her in the dark but he can smell the blood from where he stands beside her.

It’s hard to lift her up.

Small as she is, she’s built solid.

It takes him too long to figure out how to pull her over his shoulders, and even longer to force his legs to straighten beneath her weight.

Then it’s just a matter of walking back to the van. One struggling, unsteady step at a time.

\---

In the light of the van’s back seat it is so much worse. Her dark clothes are wet with blood and he can see the spots where his own jacket’s damp with it.

He lays her down as gently as he can and then he goes to hook up an IV. He thanks his stars that he thought to pack some decent medical supplies.

It’s only saline but she needs fluids and he needs to _drive._

“Come on Jyn, come on,” he mutters, pressing hard on the gas and clutching the steering wheel too tight.

“Hey Jyn everything gonna be okay alright?” he calls out to her still form behind him.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

He hears a grumble and when he looks back, Jyn’s eyes are open and tired and watching him.

Bodhi can’t help the grin that fills his face as Jyn groans.

“There might be hope for you yet spook,” she mutters and Bodhi just grins, feeling that first spark of hope that could mean everything or nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Forrest Whittaker is from Texas so I made that change for that reason.


	4. Chapter 4

She finds herself at a table in her old kitchen. There’s a warm dinner and smiling faces all around her. Her parents are there. Bodhi, Aaylah, their mother, Luke and Cassian.

Everyone is there and smiling as they set down huge dishes full of everything imaginable.

She thinks it might be Thanksgiving.

And then the soldiers come in.

Nobody seems to even see them. Nobody reacts and she watches in horror as they raise their rifles.

_ “No, please no,”  _ she begs, shaking against whatever has her tied to her chair.

_ “Please stop, please stop,” _ she says like a prayer as she watches the soldiers take aim.

They shoot Bodhi first.

And they keep shooting.

They never listen to her screams and all she can see is blood.

\---

Bodhi runs through the rain to the address he had managed to track down.

He pounds on the door and shifts his weight impatiently.

It takes an age for the door to open and reveal Jyn’s friend. In the dim hallway, Bodhi gets the barest glimpse of dark skin, short hair and a tired, impatient expression before saying,

“Jyn’s dying.”

Harry Ponta eyes him up and down for just a moment before stepping back on his crutch.

“Just let me get some pants on.”

\---

“Her temperatures is 104, she’s septic,” Harry says and Bodhi feels like he’s floundering.

“I’ve been giving her fluids and antibiotics,” he says and the man shakes his head.

“Won’t do any good until we get that arrow out.”

And Harry keeps talking. About bacteria and systemic and inflammation and Bodhi just finds himself staring down at Jyn.

She’s never been a big person. She’s shorter than he is.

But he’s never seen her look so small. For once it occurs to him how breakable she might be.

He has to hold her while Harry digs the arrow out of her shoulder. He is simultaneously nauseated by the gore of it and also stuck on realizing this is the closest he and Jyn have ever come to a hug.

Their partnership hasn’t been long.

In fact, there have been moments when he hated her.

It’s only now that he’s realizing it’s more than the mission, it’s more than his family.

It’s this girl he’s holding up and how much he wants her to stay alive.

It’s that at some point she might have fallen under the umbrella of what he would call ‘family’ and he doesn’t really know what to do about it.

Later, much later, after Harry has left, he’ll sit beside Jyn and look down at her sleeping form whispering, “Come on Jyn,  _ come on.” _

\---

Jyn wakes with a start.

_ “Saw,”  _ she says like a gasp. Suddenly there’s a voice and hands on her shoulders as she tries to sit up. Everything hurts and she’s shaking as she realizes it’s Bodhi.

“You need to lie down, you  _ need  _ to lie  _ down,”  _ Bodhi keeps saying pushing on her shoulders.

“Saw’s still out there I need to get him,” she says in a ragged rush and Bodhi’s shushing her or trying to talk over her.

“I took care of it,” he says for what might be the hundredth time before she hears him.

“What do you mean you took care of it?” she demands feeling a panic at his words. The memory of Saw and that awful wheezing as he made Jyn promise.

“I mean, he’s going to get a proper burial,” Bodhi replies and Jyn finally lets herself get pushed back to lying down. She gapes up at Bodhi, who just walks away like that’s nothing at all.

Like it isn’t everything.

“Thank you,” she whispers and she isn’t even sure if he hears her.

\---

Jyn shows up at Aaylah’s door wearing a hoodie and an apology. She was invited to dinner. 

She missed it.

Aaylah is angry.

“Luke was really looking forward to it,” she says, looking at Jyn with a simmering frustration that is completely understandable and Jyn nods at her shoes.

“I had an accident,” she says and Aaylah nods with a frown.

“You seem to have a lot of those.”

Jyn nods, “Yeah, I know.”

There’s a silence before Aaylah asks, “Are you okay?” and Jyn nods again.

Another silence follows, longer than the last.

“Do you want some tea?” Aaylah asks and Jyn shakes her head, “No I’m fine.”

Aaylah looks at her once more and says “I’ll make us some tea.”

That’s how Jyn ends up on her couch sipping green tea.

“What’s that saying about misery loves company?” the woman asks and Jyn takes another sip of tea before she asks, “Rough day?”

Aaylah sighs, “Rough week.”

Jyn watches the woman drink from her mug and try to fight back tears.

“You know Luke and Bodhi, they were pretty serious… I mean like I was expecting one of them to propose any day… And it’s hard to see him sometimes because I want to tell him,” she stops to brush a hand over her eye to catch any tears before they fall. Jyn just nods, and listens.

“I tell him, he should move on. He can get a new boyfriend, but I can’t get a new brother and sometimes I get so  _ angry  _ seeing him at the door,” she looks at Jyn then, “He only visits because he feels like he has too. Some promise he made to look after us or whatever.”

She takes a deep drink of her tea like she wishes for something stronger.

“And mom… She’s getting older and she lost her youngest. Dad died years ago and this hit her so much harder. I see it on her  _ every day  _ and I…” she trails off and finally lets a tear fall down her cheek as she looks at Jyn.

“I feel like I’m going insane. Every day it’s just like we’re all bleeding out… But slowly.”

She takes another drink and Jyn swallows hard before she even tries to speak.

“You know you’re probably gonna want to punch me for saying so but…” she looks at Aaylah, really studies her and knows what she’s about to say is true, “It’s going to get better.”

Aaylah snorts, “Has it gotten better for you?”

She has to be honest right now, not just for Aaylah, but for Bodhi who she knows can hear every word.

“You know, I’ve been alone so long… I got used to it. I even like it sometimes,” she glances at Aaylah who is watching her with such stillness, such careful, thoughtful stillness. The smallest of frowns furrowing between her brows as she listens.

“I just know that the only way out is to find something that you care about and… Your mom and Luke might make you crazy sometimes but,” she has to swallow and look away for a moment, “They’re the reason you’ll get through this.”

And she finds herself glancing at the glint in the glass of one of the many photos framed on the wall. She knows that’s where the camera is.

And Aaylah asks, “Have you found something? Something that’ll do that for you?”

Jyn looks at the other woman then, a quick, careful glance and then away again, rocking back in her seat as she turns that over for a moment.

“I think maybe… Maybe I have yeah.”

And Aaylah nods, looking so unbelievably sad, but maybe a little less broken by it. And Jyn finds herself looking at that camera again. When she speaks again, it’s to Aaylah and her brother who is surely hanging onto their every word.

“I think things are going to get a lot better for the Rook family really soon.”

“How do you know?” Aaylah asks and Jyn lets herself smile just a little.

“Just a feeling.”

\---

Chirrut is the one that finds the bug in the office, Baze has no idea how. It’s Chirrut’s idea to set up a fake sting where they loudly talk of following a false lead to Jyn Erso.

Baze is the one that leads the mission though.

Chirrut is more than capable in hand to hand combat, but he’ll be the first to admit he is at something of a loss in a firefight.

He insists on coming anyway and Baze can’t stop him.

They both decide to station him outside the building, around the back. If they miss any stragglers Chirrut should be able to catch them by surprise and detain them. Baze is hoping he stands there and nothing at all happens.

And then the whole operation goes to shit.

Baze ends up in hot pursuit after one last straggler.

“One suspect, on foot, heading around the back, be on the lookout,” he says into his ear piece and then he stumbles to a stop as he sees the man himself go racing off.

And Chirrut, bleeding on the ground.

“Shit,  _ Chirrut,”  _ Baze yells and he goes pelting towards the other man

“Federal agent down.  _ Federal agent down,”  _ he says into the earpiece as he kneels down beside his partner.

“Chirrut, you’re going to be okay, just  _ stay with me,”  _ he says in a rush as he tears off his jacket to press down from the blood is welling up on the other man’s chest.

“He had a knife that came out of  _ nowhere,”  _ Chirrut murmurs and Baze wants to slap him.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have come,  _ shit,”  _ Baze looks up, wanting to see ambulances, wanting to see  _ anybody. _

“ _ Somebody get help!”  _ he yells as loud as he can before bending down over Chirrut again, pressing down hard against the bleeding with both hands, “It’s okay, it’s okay just stay with me.”

Chirrut’s mouth is moving like he wants to say more, he reaches up to rest a bloody hand on Baze’s cheek and Baze shuts his eyes and leans into it.

_ “Fuck,”  _ he murmurs, “You  _ have _ to stay with me Chirrut.”

And Chirrut’s lips curve into a smile as his eyes slide closed.

_ “Shit. Somebody, anybody, we need help!” _

He’s afraid that it’s too late when the ambulances come. He’s sure he’s cradling a dead body when the medics come take him away and he’s too numb to do anything but sit there and watch the gurney get loaded into the back of the ambulance.

Later he will be told he kept Chirrut alive.

He will be told about medical comas and the likelihood of real survival.

Later he will go home and wash the blood off his face and let his thoughts harden into resolve as the blood runs red down the drain.

He is going to find the bastards who did this and put them behind bars or put a bullet in them.

He doesn’t much care which.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course I'm not going to kill Chirrut, are you crazy? Next chapter is going to be the Jyn/Cassian stuff I think we've all been waiting for.


	5. Chapter 5

Jyn finally met with Reese.

Finally told him that she’s alive.

It was time and it was good to see him again.

Reese offered her a job and she turned it down, but it felt her first easy smile in weeks sitting next to him. It was so familiar it was almost comforting.

As far as she could tell Reese was still the same, like no time at all had passed.

\---

Some guy set off a bomb in the city and then Cassian pissed him off much to Jyn’s horror. The piece he wrote in the bulletin was blistering and his response on that radio show was just as bad.

And then Jyn met the bomber.

Barely more than a kid and full of that righteous violence turned wrong.

Jyn doesn’t spend a lot of time considering the morality of her actions. She has lines she won’t cross if she can help it and the rest is up to god or whatever.

Lewis is like meeting a different version of herself. A version gone wrong or perhaps, _more_ wrong. Jyn’s not sure where she is on the spectrum of right and wrong but she won’t hurt civilians. She will hurt those who cause pain. She will kill those who kill.

Tying Harry to a bomb was something else entirely.

And on the escape it seems she was caught on a dashboard camera.

Now everyone thinks she and Lewis are pals and she’s even more a fugitive than she already was.

At least before the police weren’t actively looking because they thought she was dead.

At least Harry is alive, she can take comfort in that.

She has a feeling she’s going to have to deal with this Lewis character.

And sooner rather than later.

\---

“C’mon Bodhi, just find him,” Jyn says and Bodhi stares up at her from his desk.

“And what happens when I find him?” he asks and Jyn stares flat at the man.

“What do you think happens?” she looks away for a moment, “This piece of shit’s going after Cassian,” she mutters.

“Hey what’s the deal with you two anyway?” Bodhi asks, sounding almost distracted by whatever bit of circuitry he’s fiddling with.

“The deal is, nobody goes after him on my watch,” she says and her words have the beginnings of a snap to them.

“So you want to go after this guy,” Bodhi says like a challenge.

“Damn right I do,” she replies, too loud and temper flaring, “What would you do if it was Aaylah?”

And Bodhi just looks at her, almost like he’s about to try and diffuse her or decode her. He rests his head in his hand and shrugs a little and she takes a step forward looking down at him.

“If a maniac was coming after her, _what would you do?”_

“That’s different” he says, “That’s family.”

And Jyn kicks a chair over and then yanks it back so she can sit in it and stare a hole through him.

“So is Cassian, you understand me? _So is Cassian.”_

She glares at him, imploring him to get this information through his thick head. Finally he nods, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Okay, I understand,” he says and he turns to his computers and begins typing.

Jyn barely moves from her spot until he has answers for her.

_\---_

The answers are precious few and none too satisfying. Cassian is meeting up with that senator at a hotel for a follow up interview.

Lewis is going to be there.

And so Jyn will follow to spring the trap around him.

Or at least that was the hope.

She hoped to catch him with weapons in hand and shoot him before any further damage could be done. Instead she walks into the hall and sees smoke pouring out of the room and bodies wearing the Anvil logo on their chests.

She can hear them as she starts running.

The senator is begging and then Cassian.

“Hey, hey don’t shoot, don’t shoot.”

He sounds so much calmer than he has a right to be and she runs into the room and sees the scene in an instant.

More bodies, more smoke, Cassian and the senator crouched on the ground and Lewis standing over them wearing a gas mask and she can see his finger pulling down the trigger.

She’s wearing a vest and if she throws herself right it will only hurt like hell and nothing more.

She doesn’t think twice, she runs and leaps between Lewis and them and feels the impact right down to her fucking spine. But it hit the vest and so she lands on the ground, only winded. Cassian is smart and so he gets up and runs with the senator.

Jyn pulls herself and tries to shoot some cover fire but she’s a moment too slow.

The senator makes it, Cassian doesn’t.

He struggles against the hold Lewis has on him,  but Lewis was trained like Frank was trained and Cassian wasn’t. He can’t struggle out and when Lewis tries to shoot Jyn again and she can hear the barrel click empty.

 _“I’ve got a bomb,”_ he calls out, pulling back his jacket to reveal the wires and explosives strapped to his chest.

_Shit._

“Hey c’mon now,” Jyn says, trying to calm the man or de-escalate or something, but Lewis just pulls the trigger from his pocket and holds it up like a threat.

 _“Drop it,”_ he yells and he doesn’t have to say the gun.

“Lewis you _don’t need_ him,” Jyn says through gritted teeth, fighting to remain calm, fighting to _not_ provoke the man holding Cassian’s life in his hands.

“Drop it now or I’ll blow us all to hell,” he replies and Jyn shuts her eyes and exhales before slowly raising her hands in the air.

She doesn’t drop the gun but her finger isn’t on the trigger and Lewis is panting like a panic attack.

He backs out of the room and Cassian looks at her then, right in the eye, and let’s himself get dragged backwards.

Jyn follows and she keeps her hands in the air.

“Stay back, you want him dead?” Lewis demands and Jyn lets him get a little distance before she starts following again like a persistent shadow. She can’t let Cassian out of her sight.

For his part she can see the sweat and dirt on him, a few blood spatters on his sleeve and so far he’s fairly unharmed.

That’s when the other soldiers show up like something from his worst nightmares. They come out with guns pointed and finally some panic rips out of her as she shouts at them, _“He’s wired, stand down.”_

Lewis looks at her and then the men.

 _“If I let this go everybody dies,”_ he shouts, holding up the trigger for them to see.

“Put your guns _down,”_ Cassian adds and his voice barely shakes at all.

She might love him for that.

The Anvil soldiers drop their guns and raise their hands up, as per Lewis’ instruction.

Then she’s forced to watch as Cassian is dragged back into the elevator.

Trapped with a man and his bomb and she can finally see the fear in his eyes as the elevator doors start to close between them.

“I will come for you,” she tells him like a vow before the doors close.

Then those fucking soldiers start shooting at her too because of course they do.

\---

Baze had gone to talk to Reese. More to confirm his own suspicions than anything else. It’s hard to draw any good conclusions from all the men who attacked them being a part of the Anvil company.

Chirrut is stable, but he’s been put in a medical coma.

And Baze has never seen him look as fragile as he looks in that hospital bed.

And Baze needs to personally end the person who put him there, or put them behind bars.

He still hasn’t come to a conclusion one way or the other but he came to talk to Reese first as a courtesy. He was more Chirrut’s friend and as such Baze wants to do his diligence.

The conversation is… Troublesome at best. When the alarms go off a few minutes after Reese stormed off, Baze decides to be proactive.

He decides to go looking for the trouble.

It’s something Chirrut would do if he were here and he isn’t so Baze will do his best on his own to get answers for them both and maybe some justice too.

\---

Jyn lost track of how many flights she’s bolted down when a voice rings out, _“Erso, drop your weapon.”_

_Shit._

It’s Malbus without his partner and she bears the man no ill will but there is _no time for this._

“This isn’t on me Malbus. None of it,” she tells him.

“I believe you, now drop your weapon,” he replies steadily and Jyn sighs.

“I can’t do that. You’re going to have to let this go.”

“No way in _hell_ am I letting this go,” Malbus growls, “You are going to stand up in court and tell the world about Death Star and Krennic. We want the same people Jyn.”

She shakes her head, glaring at the big man who is about a flight above her.

“You been talking to somebody I know huh?” she asks knowing Bodhi must have ignored her and gone to them. It’s a betrayal that stings but that’s secondary to getting the _fuck downstairs_ and getting Cassian away from Lewis.

She sighs and takes a step down the stairs and then another. A bullet pings off the banister an inch from her hand.

A warning shot and she has no time or patience for this.

“Okay,” she mutters and she walks back up to where Malbus stands.

“Put your hands on your head,” he says sternly and she just walks right up to his gun, pressing her forehead to the muzzle.

“Shoot me or don’t but I’m walking down these stairs so you do what you gotta do,” she says glaring up at the man. He blinks, almost surprised by her and she waits a moment to see if Malbus will actually shoot her and when he doesn’t she takes a step back. The bullet that burns a path down the side of her skull comes as such a surprise it knocks her backwards. She actually falls down a half flight of stairs while he hears Malbus yell, _“What are you doing? Stand down.”_

 _“He was gonna shoot you,”_ comes the reply in a familiar voice that has Jyn sitting up straighter as she presses a hand to her scalp.

“I had it under control,” Malbus growls, “Now stand down before I charge you with obstruction.”

She can hear the tense pause as she starts to pull herself up from the ground.

“Why are you still pointing your weapon?” Malbus demands

 _“I’m trying to save your life”_ comes the reply and… is that Reese?

“I’m a federal agent _ordering you to drop your weapon.”_

“There’s no need for you to get hurt, this dies with her.”

Jyn blinks as she gets back on her feet. She takes a few steps back up the steps, just to get a look.

“Erso, stay back,” Malbus growls and she ignores that because she needs to see his face.

“It was war Baze, and the only real crime was to lose,” Reese Tallent says and she stares up at the man who she thought was her brother.

“What did you do?” she whispers as she can hear the officers coming for them but Baze doesn’t even move. He never takes his eyes of Reese.

“You shot Chirrut,” he breathes and now Jyn glances at the older man with something of surprise.

Reese doesn’t respond as officers burst in from every direction.

They grab Reese and Malbus in moments. Reese goes quietly, Malbus actually struggles.

“I’m Homeland,” She can hear him say several times and as they pull him away he roars up at Reese, _“You’re going to wish you shot me,”_ and then he’s gone.

Then it’s just her and Reese and a stairwell full of cops she doesn’t have time for.

There’s a firehose on the wall and she kicks a cop out of the way and grabs for it in a second. She goes leaping over the banister, a shout ripping from her lungs as she free falls past the cops.

When she reaches the end of the firehose it nearly dislocates her shoulders. She drops to the ground, rolling down the stairs, but she’s able to get back on her feet and keep running.

Reese was her brother and he lied. She knows that now.

But Cassian is still in trouble and she’s going to get him out come hell or high water.

\---

Cassian has been in life or death situations many times before.

He’s actually lost track of how many times.

It never gets easier.

This man Lewis is tugging him back through the underbelly of this hotel. Down here the halls are stripped down and the lights are bare.

It’s a far cry from the golden light and soft surfaces of everything upstairs.

And Cassian is trying to keep himself under control. Lewis is clearly unstable and if Cassian makes one wrong move they’ll both go up in flames along with anyone unfortunate enough to be close by.

So he lets himself get pulled and just tries to keep breathing.

Tries not to feel like he’s running out of air.

Tries not to feel the panic and adrenaline coursing through his veins.

The man brings them both into what looks like the hotel kitchens and finally lets him go.

Cassian can feel the ghost of a bruise forming on his neck where Lewis’ grip had been crushing him.

And for his part Lewis is pacing, maybe checking the perimeter and muttering to himself. Cassian could try and run but he probably wouldn’t make it. The trigger is still tightly clutched in Lewis’ hand.

The only thing Cassian can do is try and reason with him.

Attempt to de-escalate.

“Lewis? Hey, what’s the plan here?” he asks cautiously, “What happens now?”

Lewis ignores him entirely. He keeps muttering to himself, _‘Wait like a soldier.’_

And something about that is sending chills up Cassian’s spine.

“I bet we can out of this if we’re smart Lewis,” he says and Lewis shakes his head. “I’m not giving myself up. I’m not going to jail, I just need to _think.”_

“Nobody else has to die here,” Cassian says and Lewis whirls on him.

 _“Shut up,”_ he yells, holding up the trigger as an extra reminder.

“Okay, okay,” he says quickly holding his hands up like surrender.

“I don’t need some dumb foreigner telling me what to do,” Lewis says and Cassian wishes he could be literally anywhere else on this earth.

Lewis has taken a few steps back from him now, still holding out the trigger and breathing hard, like he’s preparing himself for something.

“It is ruin to run from a fight,” he says and it sounds like he’s reciting something, “So take open order, lie down, and sit tight and _wait for support like a soldier._ ”

An understanding begins to dawn as Cassian starts to wonder if he’s about to die in the next few seconds. If the last thing he will hear is some strange rhyme they trained into this one soldier.

“Wait like a soldier,” he says again and Cassian is holding is holding his breath.

He’s _waiting._

“I wrote you letters,” Lewis tells him, “I thought you understood.”

“Then _help me understand,”_ Cassian says and he almost means it but also he’s just trying to buy time now.

Every second spent talking is another second alive on this Earth. He’s fought to survive before and he wants the chance to fight again. But he can’t fight this.

“Help me understand,” he repeats and suddenly there are shouts and sounds of fighting echoing down the hall. Cassian freezes, heart in his throat and wonders if that is enough to make Lewis set off the bomb. He wonders if he’s about to die right now.

Instead Jyn steps through the door into the kitchen with her hands up and Lewis grabs Cassian by the throat.

\---

 _“I’m unarmed,_ I’m unarmed,” Jyn calls out as she staggers through the door. She knows she must look like shit just from the way Lewis and Cassian look at her.

Her right arm is a little fucked from that fall down the stairwell and she’s had to wipe blood from her eyes multiple times.

She has her hands up and Lewis is spouting more threats, “If you take one more step I swear to god I’ll blow us all straight to hell,” he says and Jyn freezes then and studies the wires coming off him.

With Harry, the white wire was the one that disarmed the bomb. If they are _very_ lucky it might work twice.

She just needs to get Cassian’s attention.

“You know everyone thinks we did this together,” she says and she takes another step forward. Lewis takes a step back.

“You know maybe we are the same, you and me,” she continues and Cassian is staring at her hard now.

“When we were with Curtis, you told me to pull the white wire right? You did the right thing then and you could do it again.”

And she sees it now in Cassian’s dark eyes. He understands.

She keeps talking and Cassian’s hand slowly, slowly creeps towards the wires. He grabs the red one and Jyn just gives the slightest shake of her head and keeps talking.

She’s talking about Lewis’ dad, about how having a terrorist son is going to fuck up his life forever.

“He will know loneliness and he will _suffer.”_

Lewis drags Cassian a few steps back but he doesn’t say anything.

“You and me, we know about suffering right? About brothers in arms?”

Cassian carefully grabs the black wire and she shakes her head again.

“We’re creatures of habit at the end of the day, I think you’re a creature of habit aren’t you Lewis?”

Cassian grabs the white wire and she nods.

“Doing the same shit over and over again, expecting different results.”

She looks Cassian dead in the eye and sees him steeling himself. She loves him a little for this too.

_“Do it now Cassian.”_

He pulls the wire and Lewis pulls the trigger and Jyn tackles him head on, knocking Cassian to the side.

Lewis somehow manages to get himself in the freezer and lock himself in.

On the outside Jyn can only pound on the door and watch as the kid cries.

His plan fell apart and now he’s just a stupid kid with a bomb and she watches with a sick sort of knowledge as he pushes the wire back in.

“ _Shit_ Jyn we’ve gotta go now,” Cassian says somewhere behind her and Jyn stands frozen, watching it happen.

“Cassian get out of here,” she says.

“Jyn,” he says and he sounds shaky and ragged and she turns to look at him for just a moment.

“Cassian you get _the hell out of here,”_ she growls.

The freezer won’t contain it, he needs to get somewhere safe and Cassian replies with equal ferocity, _“Hell no. Come on!”_

And she loves him a little for that too. And then she sees Lewis pull the trigger and all she can do is run for Cassian and get him far enough away before the blast knocks them both on their asses.

\---

The explosion comes and time seems to stop.

The heat licks at his skin as Jyn pulls him to the ground and the concussive blast of it stuns him senseless.

His ears are ringing, there’s smoke everywhere and before he even opens his eyes, he’s reaching out for Jyn beside him. His hand finds her arm and the first thing he can hear is her breathing, heavy and gasping like his own.

He opens his eyes to see Jyn lying beside him looking like hell itself. God knows what he must look like, he feels like one giant bruise. She’s reaching for him, one hand ghosting over his forehead, his cheek.

“Cassian are you okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he replies, “You?”

“Yeah.”

Somehow they both get to their feet. Somehow they walk the few steps to see what’s left of that freezer.

 _“Shit,”_ he murmurs at the sight of it.

Jyn stares, flinty eyed at it for barely a moment before turning back to him.

“Come on,” she says and she starts to stagger towards the door. There’s a piece of metal sticking out of her arm and she doesn’t seem too bothered by it.

Nor does she seem bothered by the distant sounds of police chatter echoing down the hall.

 _“Hey,”_ he calls out and she stops to look at him.

“What?”

“I have an idea.”

\---

He says it’s not his gun, just one he pulled off a dead Anvil soldier in that firefight.

It’s the best play they have and he insists on it.

They come out into a hall full of police soldiers with Cassian held to her the way Lewis had grabbed him before. She has a gun pressed under his chin and her finger on the trigger.

It’s strange that these are the moments they get the closest. She can feel every line of him pressed against her. It feels like burning. The trigger, like acid beneath her finger.

“Don’t shoot,” Cassian calls out as they step out of the shadows, approaching the elevator to the right of all those cops.

She recognizes Detective Mahoney immediately but says nothing, let’s Cassian speak for them both.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot please,” he says sounding so tired and Jyn just walks them towards the elevator.

“Let him go Erso,” Detective Mahoney says and she says nothing as she slams down the button for the elevator and waits for the doors to open.

“There’s no way out of this, we have the building surrounded,” the detective continues and the elevator bell chimes so Jyn pulls them both inside. There is no sound but their own heavy breathing as they step back against the wall and she kicks the button for the doors to shut with her foot.

The moment the doors close they fall away from each other like they’ve been burned. Jyn leans her good shoulder against the wall and just tries to catch her breath.

She can see Cassian doing the same and it’s him she’s watching more than anything else.

She watches as he looks at her and nods before pressing the emergency stop on the elevator.

She nods back and hands Cassian the gun, before angling herself to jump and knock one of the ceiling panels aside.

There’s the whole elevator shaft above her and if she can get up there she can figure out the next thing from there.

“Jyn,” he says beside her, soft and almost sad.

Her heart’s still pounding, her mind is still racing. She’s too full of adrenaline to think and Cassian touches her arm. The one with the metal sticking out of it. He grimaces at the wound and then looks up at her.

She looks back.

There’s too much emotion flying through his eyes, there’s too much whirling around her brain for her to make sense of.

For a moment she just looks at him, lets him lean into her space and share her air.

It's just a passing instant, maybe a few seconds, but she moves forward slowly and presses her forehead to his, willing him to understand this.

He smells of sweat and blood and she can feel every point of contact like a brand burning into her skin. She feels his hands on her arms, his forehead touching hers and just  _breathes._

And then, Cassian steps back.

He murmurs softly, _“Go,”_ and looks at her with so much feeling its practically blinding. But she can see in his eyes that they've come to some kind of an understanding.

He knots his hands together and gives her a boost so she can climb out through the roof of the elevator and she only stops for one last glimpse.

One final moment of Cassian, staring up at her with wide eyes full of things she can’t begin to name, before she begins climbing the elevator stairs up the shaft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so Lewis being the sort of right wing type they make him out to be is probably a racist and Cassian is Mexican. I didn't want to dig too much into that or start throwing slurs around but yeah. That's probably a thing.


	6. Chapter 6

Jyn comes back from the hotel ready to fight. Bodhi must have gone to Malbus, that’s the only way he could know so much. She came back full of fury and ready to scream.

They even started to fight until she noticed the screens showing Bodhi’s home.

How empty yet overturned they looked. There was a lamp that had been knocked over, a table kicked out from its usual spot.

Bodhi bites down on his knuckles as they rewind the footage and see Aaylah fighting like hell against the men trying to abduct her. They get his mother, Shohreh too and the sound that escapes him as they watch the footage sounds like an animal in pain.

As soon as the house is empty Bodhi is rummaging through his desk for his gun saying, “I gotta go Jyn, I gotta  _ go.” _

And Jyn has to stop him and talk him down from whatever half baked idea he’s working with now when the man freezes. 

Without a word he suddenly muscles past Jyn, back to his desk and she lets him.

“What is it?” she asks and he just waves her away. She watches him lean in close to the screen as he switches to a feed of the back of the house and rewinds the footage.

Then she sees what he must have been expecting or hoping for.

Luke scrambling out from the upstairs window and dropping down. They both watch as Luke stands almost frozen, a hand going to his mouth.

Then he runs and Bodhi watches him disappear from the footage.

“He always comes on Wednesdays,” Bodhi murmurs and Jyn nods.

“Do you know his cell number?” she asks and Bodhi nods, his eyes never leaving the screens as if they might reveal something new to him still. 

“Then call him,” she says and hands him her phone. Bodhi turns to stare at the burner, wide eyed and terrified.

“Jyn he thinks I’m dead I can’t just  _ call  _ him.”

\---

He has no idea how Aaylah knew as they were watching news footage with Lianna’s face plastered everywhere saying she’s a criminal named Jyn Erso. There was a knock on the door and Aaylah frowned and told Luke to go upstairs and grab something from Bodhi’s room.

(Aaylah didn’t like to go in there, this wasn’t too odd as requests go. He’d found all sorts of thing in Bodhi’s room for her, from phone chargers to old photo albums.)

So he went upstairs and he heard the officer ask, “How do you know Jyn Erso?”

“I don’t,” Aaylah had said carefully and when Luke peered down the stairs Aaylah shook her head at him and motioned him away.

He stayed out of sight at the top step. Close enough to hear the officer ask about  _ him specifically. _

That didn’t seem like the kind of information an average cop should know and the cop was telling Aaylah and Shohreh to come with him to the station for ‘their protection.’

“Thanks for the offer but we’ll be fine,” Aaylah said sounding so unbelievably calm.

There was a long quiet and then the cop said, “You’re coming with me.”

He heard Aaylah yell,  _ “Mom run,”  _ and a crash that sounded like glass breaking.

Luke panicked.

He  _ panicked. _

For a moment he thought maybe he could just call for help but the men who abducted Aaylah and Shohreh were police officers. And so he  _ ran. _

He ended up in the nearby park, jumpy and suspicious of every stranger that passed. Should he go home? What if the police tracked him there? Would they abduct him too?

When his phone buzzed in his pocket, he answered it on reflex.

“Luke?” A familiar voice asked.

“Lianna?” He asked, “Or is it Jyn like they’re saying on the news or…”

“Luke, I need you to listen to me.” Lianna or Jyn or whoever said sounding almost fierce, “I can help you, but you’re going to have to listen.”

And Luke stared helplessly at the phone in his hand, “They took Aaylah and Shohreh,” he whispered.

“I know. And I know you have no reason to trust me but I swear to god I’m going to get them back and keep you all safe.”

He truly has no reason to trust the woman that everyone on the news is calling a terrorist.

Except she sounds like she truly means every word and he finds himself nodding like she could see it through the phone.

“Okay,” he whispers.

“Okay,” she replies.

“Now when we get off the phone take the battery and the SIM card out of your phone and throw them in opposite directions.”

“The police can track my phone?” Luke asks, trying to suppress the panic in his voice.

“Whoever this is Luke, it isn’t the police. Now listen up, I need you to go to the  _ pool playground.  _ I’ll meet you there when I can, just wait for me there.”

Luke wonders how Jyn or Lianna could possibly know his stupid childhood name for a piece of the park but she’s telling to hang up  _ now  _ and so he does. He removes the battery, tosses it one way, and throws the SIM card in the other direction and then runs.

When Luke met Bodhi three years ago, right when he started to go for his masters degree and after Bodhi had gotten his hush hush government job it had almost been a joke between them. He used to joke that Bodhi was off to ‘save the world’ and Bodhi would blush and shake his head saying he was just a pencil pusher.

He wonders what Bodhi would think if he could see Luke now.

\---

“You’ve gotta go to him Bodhi,” Jyn says and Bodhi stares at her and wonders if she’s got a screw loose somewhere.

“I thought you said you were going.”

“I know what I said but it’s gotta be you,” Jyn tells him.

“Jyn, he thinks  _ I’m dead.  _ What am I gonna do? Walk up to him and be like, ‘hey I’ve been living in a basement for a year. I’m not dead. Let's get some coffee?” And his voice cracks on the last of it. 

“Bodhi look at me,” she says and Bodhi does. She’s staring him down and it's almost startling to see how much compassion is there when she looks at him. How much understanding.

“Bodhi, you go to him and meet me at the Greenpoint Terminal. If I don’t show up by midnight, go to Malbus and  _ only _ to Malbus got it?”

And Bodhi nods because he has no other response left in him. He sniffs back any tears that threaten and asks, “What are you gonna do?”

Jyn rocks back on her heels with a deadly look in her eye.

“I’m gonna wait here for those assholes to show up. I’m gonna make them tell me where Aaylah is and then I’m gonna kill ‘em.”

And with that she turns on her heel and leaves

\---

The park is deadly quiet when Bodhi walks in. He threads his way past the swings and the slides and finally finds his way to the pool.

“Luke, I know you were expecting Jyn… I mean Lianna but…” he trails off looking around, “It’s me… It’s Bodhi.”

He pulls his hood down and turns around in time to see Luke unfold himself from wherever he was hiding. His eyes are saucer wide as he slowly walks up to the gate and unlocks it.

Bodhi waits, braces himself for whatever reaction might come. Luke could yell and scream at him if he wanted to.

Bodhi would surely deserve every word.

Instead Luke walks right up to him, and looks him up and down once, as though assessing that it is truly him.

And then he pulls Bodhi into a strangling hug which Bodhi returns with equal force.

In his ear Luke whispers,  _ “You’re alive.” _

“I’m alive,” Bodhi replies feeling a little lost and unsure of whether he should laugh or cry.

Finally Luke takes a step back, looks him over again, like he’s afraid Bodhi might disappear.

The punch is a little bit of a surprise but it’s only to his shoulder.

“You’re  _ alive?”  _ Luke demands angrily, “And why the hell did you make me wait at a kiddie pool, I’ve been getting weird looks all day and  _ you’re alive?” _

Bodhi rubs at his shoulder where Luke hit him and looks down, sheepish and embarrassed.

“I can only say for the pool, it needed to be a code you would understand because we’re assuming your cell has been tapped.”

That stumps Luke for a moment.

“Right...Lianna...or Jyn I guess…You’re working with her?”

Bodhi nods and Luke asks, “Then where is she now?”

\---

Jyn stands in their basement, soaked in blood. The walls are practically drenched in it, those are aren’t covered in ash or rubble.

She stands over the last man alive and he tells her nothing.

She shoots him and moves on.

She’s got no time to waste on low level scum bags when Reese is still out there and too much of a coward to do his own dirty work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I am siiiiiick right now but I wanted to get something out and so voila. For the curious I got Bodhi's mom's name from the actress Shohreh Aghdashloo who is the actress that actually plays Dinah's mom? Basically I love that actress so I snagged her name for Bodhi's mum.


End file.
